The subject system and method are generally directed to displaying and editing a circuit design on a circuit design editor. The system and method generally provide for dynamic visual guidance which directs valid placement, according to predetermined placement criteria, of a component relative to any of a plurality of other components, without excessive visual “clutter” in the editor resulting from the visual guidance.
With conventional electronic circuit designs generally rising both in complexity and precision, the need for increasingly robust circuit design editor systems continues to increase. Circuit design editors allow a circuit designer or design team to arrange, configure, and adjust various electronic components and the interconnections therebetween of an electronic circuit design in a virtual design environment, for ultimate physical manufacture of the resulting circuit design. Various editors also support computer simulation-based assessment of a circuit's behavior, and testing of the circuit design for flaws in power, timing, or other operational features or properties, which assist the circuit designer in making any necessary adjustments.
Additional features provided for various editors include automated measures for monitoring the design to confirm suitable compliance with predetermined design and/or operational criteria. The circuit product implementing the circuit design may thereby be improved and brought into compliance with the applicable criteria before time and expense are actually incurred in manufacturing a physical circuit in accordance with the design's physical layout.
Because of the complexity of the circuits being designed, a graphic representation of a circuit design layout may appear excessively crowded with information as displayed by a circuit design editor, yet lack the effective display of the information most on point to the design task or problem at hand. Even for the most capable and experienced user, the visually presented graphic display may for such reasons be of far less use than it could be. It is therefore an ongoing effort in the field to distinguish pertinent information from non-pertinent and intuitively present the former while minimalizing presentation of the latter, in a manner that makes efficient and productive use of the circuit editor's visual display capabilities.